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Halo: Ghosts Of War
This story is about GHOST Team's mission on the planet Sylus, during which they are captured and later freed through the help of SPARTANs. Chapter One: Ghosts in the darkness... Simon stood on a grassy hill overlooking a seemingly infinite plain. Thick, black columns of smoke curled into the sky, sheared off miles above by the howling winds. The twisted, and burnt wrecks of vehicles littered the once tranquil landscape. Bodies dotted the hills, staining the grass with the blood of a hundred lost souls. Heavy footsteps resounded behind him, the rest of his team. They had landed on the planet only ten hours ago, via Stealth Exo-Atmospheric Insertion Vehicles, and already they encountered exactly what they were trying to avoid: the war. Their mission was simple, relatively speaking; get in, capture the Covenant technology and get out. Being a secret cell of the ONI, they were to avoid any and all contact with UNSC forces, even if they required their help. Simon pulled off his helmet and looked at the field with his own eyes. Warthogs, Scorpions...everything, lay in ruins. Flaming hulks destroyed by the crushing might of the Covenant, lay in burnt rings of grass and craters in the terrain. This battle had taken place almost a day ago, but the derelict vehicles still burned. "Simon," A grizzly russian voice whispered, "We need to keep moving, we still have 12 clicks to clear before midnight." "Yeah..." Simon trailed off... 24 hours ago... Sean ran at full speed towards the nearest warthog, a trio of Banshee fliers screamed overhead spraying the ground around him with their plasma cannons. They flew past him and banked hard for another strafe. When they had turned, instead of firing at him, they let loose their fuel rod guns at the warthog he was running towards. Sean, being only 3 yards away was thrown tens of feet by the explosion. He landed on his chest, expelling the last of the air in his lungs. With a cough he rose to his feet, finding an assault rifle on the ground in front of him he took it up and looked for the nearest enemy. He found a pair of grunts waddling along 20 yards away. Sean dropped to one knee and let out a full-auto burst at the stout creatures. Unknown to this threat the bullets tore through them and ignited the methane in their gas tanks to ignite and scatter chunks of alien across the battlefield. His company had been moving when they ran into a covenant garrison encamped at the base of the foothills. A battle started in seconds. Sean had lost his gun minutes into the battle, and had been without one for almost half an hour. Now, he stood in the odd structures of the covenant encampment searching for something to kill. He turned the corner of the octohedral "tent" and ran into a jackal. He let out a surprised yelp and the vulture like creature ripped a loud screech and ran away. Sean raised his rifle and fired. He managed to loose four rounds before the magazine went dry. He ducked behind a purple box and looked for a weapon. He suddenly heard dull and heavy footsteps draw near. Sean pushed himself close to the box and made himself as small as possible. A brute, wearing no power armor lumbered past, it's nose thrust into the air. He let it disappear into the battle before he moved again. Frantically, Sean searched for a weapon...anything at this point. Eventually he found a knife, driven deep into a fellow marines head, he looked away and slid out the blade. Sean wiped it clean and stuck it on his belt. Suddenly, he heard the heavy footsteps again. Seeing nowhere to hide on the ground he climbed up on a tent that seemed to made of some type of polymer. He heard the footsteps suddenly stop nearby the tent. His heart pounding he dared a peek over the side, the brute's nose still in the air, it didn't notice the human on the tent nearest him. A deep, angry growl was let asunder from the brutes mighty mouth as it suddenly turned towards Sean and was sent into a bloodlust. Sean, aware of this threat stood up and started running, jumping from tent to tent. His pursuer crawled on top of the tent but soon fell through it's roof. Releasing another growl it tore through the wall and pursued him on foot. Without looking, Sean continued to jump from tent to tent to tent. He had been running for about a minute when he realized he only had bout 2 more minutes before he ran out of tents, and the brute, while barely slower than him was still going strong. Knowing he didn't stand the slightest chance in hand-to-hand combat, he kept on running. 150 yards to the left a Scorpion tank shot a shell into the camp, it impacted 15 feet behind Sean, tossing him like a ragdoll into the air. He landed hard on his chest, knocking the wind from him. Sean scrambled to his feet and kept running for about 30 seconds when he realized he wasn't being pursued anymore. He heard a faint whistling that rapidly grew louder, Sean looked into the sky and saw a small black dot against the blue sky heading right towards him. He dived to the left just as a mangled brute helmet impacted into the ground next to him. For the first time, he gauged the situation. All around him, Marines were being decimated by the numerically superior Covenant forces, however, they still had the advantage. 3 Scorpion tanks setup on the hill behind them and had disabled their entire vehicle force. However, their infantry outnumbered them and slowly had been taking the field. Sean grabbed a nearby assault rifle off the body of a comrade, and took up a position behind a large supply crate. He started harassing small squads of Jackals and Grunts. He managed to get away with it for about 15 minutes before another brute started shooting at him with a plasma rifle. Sean, desperate for a way out of this started frantically searching, for what, he didn't know. He found a small blue orb on the ground, A grenade he thought. He picked it up and started looking for a switch when his hand slipped over a button, depressing it into the surface. The grenade made a beep and started vibrating, growing more and more violent. "SHIT!" Sean yelled he stood up and tossed the grenade at the brute, sticking to his chest. The grenade starting glowing brighter and brighter, the brute screamed and disappeared in a flash of light and heat. Over his personal radio he heard an unfamiliar voice sound a retreat. Sean started heading back towards the hills from whence they came while the scorpion tanks and few warthogs gave them cover. In all only 150 of the 360 soldiers made it out of the battle alive. 24 hours later... Simon picked through the remains of the battle, grabbing odds and ends, special, personal articles that belonged to dead soldiers. He couldn't quite place it but something gave him the urge to collect these little trinkets and mementos. He had pictures of women he'd never seen before, crosses, stars of david, pocket bibles and copies of the Qur'an. "Alright, let's get moving," Simon said over the com, breaking the 15 minute silence. Green lights blazed on his HUD. They had started climbing the hill when he heard a distant whirring. Phantom... he thought to himself, he flashed his red acknowledgment twice, signaling for the team to take cover. They ducked behind the charred remains of warthogs and destroyed structures of the covenant living quarters. The sleek phantom glided over the camp, it's turret scanning the ground for any signs of life, but finding none. GHOST team's armor had been upgraded with special technology that changed colors to match their surroundings, while nowhere near the power of the covenant's active camouflage technology, it still as more effective than nothing. Suddenly, the phantom stopped, a circular door on the bottom opened up and out dropped a squad of brutes, five of them. Their noses stuck in the air, sniffing for...well, anything. "Okay, everyone see's the new threat, Linda I want you to hit the phantom in it's sweet spot with your rocket launcher, on my signal. Everyone else, follow my lead." Simon crouch walked as close as he could get to the brutes. He flashed his green acknowledgment light once, and not a split second later did a missile tear into the phantom's engines and explode, disabling the craft. Simon popped up from his cover and fired into the squad with his RAR-101 ICWS, the rest of his team followed suit and within 30 seconds the brutes were dead or on the edge of death. Mikhail, took out his pistol and put a bullet in each one for good measure. "Alright, lets go, Milla is only 12 clicks off and it's the only way we can get some type of transportation to the cache. 23 hours ago...